


The Email

by prettysemmy



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, M/M, Meta, Pre-Slash, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-07
Updated: 2012-04-07
Packaged: 2017-11-03 05:41:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/377917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettysemmy/pseuds/prettysemmy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaidan writes an apology email to Shepard while reliving the Horizon reunion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Email

**Author's Note:**

> Could be canon. It's certainly head-canon. 
> 
> Mid Mass Effect 2.

_**Shepard,** _

_**I'm sorry, for what I said back on Horizon.** _

Shepard. It _was_ Shepard, Kaidan knew it, would have recognized his voice anywhere. 

Shepard was alive. So the...the rumors were true. But how was that possible? He had watched the...

Kaidan leaned against the divide and tried to calm his heart. He was breathing too fast, his hands were shaking a little. Why did Shepard affect him like this?

The way Kaidan had reacted when Shepard went down with the Normandy, he hadn't understood himself. It had hit him hard. Shepard had made him feel...normal. Human. Shepard accepted him like no one had ever done before.

_**I mean, I spent two years pulling myself back together after you went down with the Normandy. It took me a long time to get over my guilt for surviving.** _

All Kaidan could think about for months afterwards, was that Shepard was dead and Kaidan wasn't. That Kaidan had wanted to stay with him, maybe could have saved him. They were a team...

_**I had to move on...** _

He had felt so lost.

_**When I finally let my friends talk me into going out for drinks with a doctor on the Citadel...nothing serious, just trying to let myself have a life again, you know? And then...** _

Kaidan thought he had pulled himself together when he stepped out and told Delan, who, exactly, it was he was addressing.

_**And then, I saw you.** _

"Commander Shepard, Captain of the Normandy, first human Spectre, Savior of the Citadel. You're in the presence of a legend, Delan...And a ghost."

_**And...everything just...pulled hard to port.** _

Delan said something else, but Kaidan didn't know what it was. His attention was on Shepard. It was really him. He looked good. Like he was healthy and so, so, not dead. The only relic of his disappearance, strange glowing scars; but even they didn't look...ugly, or disfiguring.

Before he knew it, he was standing in front of his ex-commander. The sudden urge to touch him was...distressing. Kaidan, ridiculously, wanted to hug him. He put his hand out and tried to keep everything else off his face.

_**You were standing in front of me...** _

"I thought you were dead," Kaidan said, "we all did."

"It's been too long, Kaidan. How have you been?" Shepard answered, like this was nothing. Like it hadn't...

"You show up, after two years, and that's all you have to say? I would have followed you anywhere, Commander." And then Kaidan's tight grip on his control slipped and he heard himself ask, in an embarrassing tone, "Why didn't you try to contact me? Why didn't you let me know you were alive? Thinking you were gone," Kaidan said roughly, "was like losing a limb."

"I was out for two years. You moved on in career...and life," Shepard said, but at least that sounded more like he cared. "Why open up old wounds?"

Kaidan was Staff Commander now, had important missions of his own. And the doctor, Chloe, they had been sort of dating for maybe six months.

"I did move on."

But he had never really been committed to her, had he? She was helping him take the edge off. But off of what? He hadn't let himself think about it, but Kaidan, suddenly, alarmingly, realized it had been to take the edge off of losing Shepard.

"At least I thought I did." Kaidan said.

_**...but you were with Cerberus.** _

Kaidan didn't want to believe Shepard could be working for Cerberus, but Shepard confirmed it. Kaidan heard himself tell Shepard that he'd betrayed them, betrayed Kaidan.

And even though Shepard said, "You know me, you know I would only do this for the right reasons." Kaidan thought they might be manipulating him, they might be using the threat of the Reapers to get Shepard to do what they wanted.

"You've changed, but I still know where my loyalties lie," Kaidan had felt the need to say, "I'm an Alliance soldier. Always will be." 

But, even as he said it, he felt a part of him wanting to just give in, to let Shepard be right. It was not the way a soldier should be.

_**I guess, I really don't know who either of us is anymore.** _

"I've got to report back to the Citadel," he said, harsher than he meant to, "They can decide if they believe your story or not." 

He turned to go and then Shepard said, quickly, like he didn't want Kaidan to leave, "I could use someone like you on my crew, Kaidan. It will be just like old times."

Kaidan turned, and that was a bad idea. The words had sounded casual, but the look in Shepard's eyes wasn't. _Please stay_ , it begged, _don't go_. How had Kaidan never noticed Shepard's eyes were so blue?

Old times? "No it won't." Kaidan responded, "I'll never work for Cerberus." Kaidan couldn't help adding, "Goodbye Shepard, and...be careful."

And Kaidan had to step away then. He didn't even know what he would have done if he'd stayed. Probably join him, just because Shepard asked. Kaidan would have left the Alliance, against everything he believed, and follow Shepard anywhere. It was so hard to resist.

_**A lot has changed in the last two years, and I can't just put that aside.** _

Shepard just pulls at something in him. In a way no one else ever had. Not Rahna, and certainly not Chloe.

But why is he even thinking about her? What does she have to do with this? That makes it sound like...but Kaidan just cares a lot about him...it's not like...

_**But, please be careful. I mean I've watched too many close people to me die. On Eden Prime, on Virmire, on Horizon...on the Normandy.** _

I watched _you_ die, Kaidan thinks. His chest feels tight again.

_**And I just couldn't bear it if I had to lose you again.** _

And he knows, then, that this isn't over. That he won't be able to stay away forever, like a moth to a flame. Shepard has this...magnetism. People just want to follow him.

_**I mean, if you are still the man that I remember, then I know you're going to find a way to stop these Collector attacks.** _

Kaidan wants to stand next to him, fighting with him.

_**But Cerberus is too dangerous to be trusted.** _

Maybe just to protect Shepard from himself.

_**Watch yourself.** _

And then something in Kaidan aches. Hurts because Shepard is alive and Kaidan's not there with him, watching out for him, making sure he has somebody he can trust. Someone to lean on.

It can get so lonely at the top. 

_**Look when things settle down a little, maybe...I don't know.** _

Kaidan rubs his hand across his face and questions himself, for the hundredth time, what he is trying to accomplish with this email.

It had started with wanting to apologize for the things he'd said, but now it was a confused mess. It sounds like he has feelings for Shepard, like Kaidan's in love with him, or something. Maybe...what, Kaidan? You'd go on a date. This is ridiculous.

Just say what you want to say, Kaidan. Don't get lost in...in the way you feel...

_**Just take care.** _

_**Kaidan** _

He takes several deep breaths, reads the email again, and then hits delete.


End file.
